War Base Layout
Untitled.png The war base layout differs from the regular base in terms of the primary goal. For the war base the primary goal is to prevent the town hall from being destroyed and thereby limit the stars that can be won by an enemy to one. For a regular base the goal is to protect resources from being stolen. Since the war base must protect the town hall the first organizing principle is that the town hall is placed at the center of the base defenses. As enemy clans increase in strength they shift more and more to air based attacks, dragon spam in particular. Also seen with less frequency than dragon spam are hog rider spam attacks or combinations of hog riders and dragons. The primary defenses against dragon spam are air defense and the towers which can target air attackers - archer, wizard, Tesla & inferno towers. Also of importance are castle troops. It is crucial to have war castles filled with forces that can target air attackers - archers, wizards, and/or dragons. But it is also of crucial importance that castle troops not emerge until enemy attack forces have been substantially committed to the attack. When castle troops emerge early they can be lured to a relatively safe section at the edge of the base and killed by the enemy before the enemy deploys its main attack force. A dragon in the war castle has the disadvantage of taking up lots of space so once the dragon is drawn out and killed there are likely to be few if any remaining castle troops to threaten the enemy attackers. If a war castle is filled with only archers it is likely that only about half the castle troops will emerge to engage the first perceived enemy threat leaving a significant number of additional castle troops to emerge later and target enemy attackers after enemy troops have been fully deployed. The best prescription for filling war castles with troops that can combat dragon attacks seems to be mainly archers with one or two wizards, the highest level archers and wizards available. The key to delaying the release of war castle troops too early is the "trigger radius" of the castle. If you visit any base and tap the clan castle a white circle will be displayed around the castle which represents the "trigger radius." Any enemy troops which touch or cross that white circle will trigger the emergence of castle troops. SO, our second design principle for the war base is to make sure that enemy troops have to get through at least one defensive wall layer before they can activate the trigger radius and initiate castle troop emergence. Fundamental design principles: 1. Place the town hall at the center of the base defenses. Place the clan castle at the center of the base defenses along with the town hall. This center section of the base defenses can be called the "inner ring." 2. Build an outer ring of the strongest available wall sections with a radius LARGER than the "trigger radius" of the clan castle so an enemy must penetrate that wall layer to trigger the emergence of castle troops. 3. Stiffen the resistance of the outer wall ring by padding it with non-lethal buildings like huts, mines, pumps, barracks, army camps, elixir tanks, and gold vaults placed OUTSIDE the outer ring of walls so enemy forces must destroy the "padding" before even reaching the wall itself. Hopefully enemy forces will be distracted attacking the "padding" and be sitting ducks for cannon and mortar fire as well as tower fire - archer, wizard, Tesla & inferno towers. 4. Resource storage - tanks and vaults - have extremely high hit points: they take a long time to kill. Place them outside the approach path to air defenses but within range of the air defense and the towers so dragons will be distracted by those resource storage structures and be sitting ducks for targeting by air defenses and towers while they try to destroy the resource storage. 5. Place air defenses in the intermediate ring of defense, between the inner and outer rings, somewhat evenly spaced around the inner ring. Ideally the air defenses are close enough to each other that a dragon attacking one air defense is subject to being hit by one or two other air defenses. Don't group air defenses too close together though such that large sections of the base are not protected from dragons and the air defenses can be quickly destroyed by an assault from a group of 3-5 dragons. 6. Mortars have long throw distance and belong close to the center of the base defenses so they can target ground forces attacking the outer ring of walls. 7. There are some diabolical design possibilities with placing wall gaps to attract ground forces to walk into spring traps and bombs. Traps and bombs can also be usefully placed on the approach path to air defenses, the specific weapons that enemies will seek to destroy first to soften a target for dragon attack. 8. For those who have them I think there are some specific tips for placement of the King and Queen on the base to maximize their effectiveness in protecting the town hall and resisting dragon spam. If you have some tips about the King and Queen please add them here or in the comments.